Friday I woke up all chipper and full of energy. I kicked ass at work. I worked late into the evening and I liked it. I got stuff done, and dammit, my code was well designed and bug free. (Take that, sloppy co-workers!)
Saturday was much the same. I woke up at a reasonable time in the morning, I got stuff done around the house, I played WoW. It was a good day. Until Saturday night.
Joey called me on Skype and acted like a complete ass. I don't excuse him for being a jerk (he really was), but my reaction was somewhat disproportionate to the offense. Fortunately I didn't direct it at him, in fact I handled him quite well. It didn't go wrong until afterward, when I crashed head first into a big weepy, mushy mess, all over again. Just from that one interaction!
I cried so hard that it turned into a full-on panic attack. I couldn't stop crying and I couldn't breathe. And again, I was thinking, I don't even know why I'm crying this hard. A few tears were warranted, but sobbing so hard that I'm about to choke on my own tears and suffocate because I can't breathe?
I cried myself to sleep. Next morning, I woke up feeling just fine, as if the sob fest had never happened. Still irritated with Joe, but we talked it out, and I had a pretty decent and productive Sunday. I went to look at a house, and I went back to the house that I already have an offer on. I took loads of pictures of both. I emailed them to Joe. I even tolerated over an hour on the phone with my mom, playing tech support while she signed up for her very first taste of social networking - a shiny new Facebook account.
During the weekend, I became very concerned about my cat, Nina. She's had this cough for the last 6 months. I took her to the vet back in November. She had an x-ray. They noticed she had some stuff in her lungs and her heart was a little enlarged. We tried treating it like it was asthma, although we feared it could be heart disease.
Months later, the asthma medication didn't help, her coughing has gotten harder and more frequent. On Saturday I noticed her energy level was lower than normal. She hunkered down in one place for most of the day. She would fall asleep for a bit, then wake up coughing. She didn't seem to be bathing herself as much as usual. And she had that irritated kitty look on her face like she just plain didn't feel good.
On Sunday, I was prepared to take her to the vet if she got worse, but she remained steady. I called and made an appointment anyway.
Took her in today after work, got a new x-ray, and discovered that she has a lot more stuff in her lungs, and her heart is larger. They gave her a treatment to help drain the stuff, but it's just to manage her symptoms. If I want to find out what's really wrong, and find out if it's treatable, I'd have to take her to a cardiologist.
I'm not sure what to do. I had a bad experience with over-blown cat medical treatment in the past. My little kitty Charlie - he was only 5 months old. He had a congenital defect, a hole in his diaphragm which was letting his abdominal organs come through into his chest, compressing his heart and lungs. Before we knew this, they noticed that his heart was enlarged. Took him to a cardiologist to get the rest of the news. Got him surgery to sew up the hole in his diaphragm. Poor sweet little guy... even after surgery, we had to have him put down. I was devastated. It just wasn't fair.
Am I prepared to go through that again? Am I prepared to put another cat through it?
There's a chance they could find that Nina's condition is treatable. But how much will it cost? Can I afford it? I hate to think like that. She's family to me, and it seems so wrong to be weighing her health against my bank account. But it's a reality, especially as I'm trying to buy a house.
Which brings me back to the other development - after I took pictures of the house on Sunday, I fell in love with it all over again. I really want this place. I see so much potential there. The house inspection is happening tomorrow, and the resulting information could make or break the deal. It will certainly give me a better picture of how much money I can expect to spend on repairs before I move in, since the house is being sold as-is. Hurray for short sales.
On Sunday before I left to go look at houses, I had a nose bleed. I can't remember the last time I had one. It seemed odd. Took a minute to get it to stop, and then I had that salty rusty taste in the back of my throat for the rest of the day.
Tonight while I was waiting at home to pick Nina up from the vet, I had another nose bleed, and this one was worse. Blood gushed out of my nose and dripped over my mouth and chin, and all over my finger tips. I soaked half a dozen kleenex sheets. It felt and tasted like about as much blood went down my throat too. Then ... this is gross ... as I was walking outside to go get Nina, a lump of bloody mucus dropped into the back of my throat, like a rust-flavored loogie. I've never had to spit out a loogie before, especially not a bloody one. It wasn't very pleasant.
Nose bleeds usually aren't serious, I'm just surprised to have had two of them in as many days, when I hadn't had one in... I don't know how many years. I can't even remember. I read about all of the possible side effects of the medications I'm taking. No nose bleed there. But I have had a runny nose pretty consistently for over a month, and I've been blowing or wiping my nose a lot. I've probably dried out my nasal canal. Not a huge deal but still surprising and... gross.
All of this stuff is going on, and I can't talk to Joey about it. He's living in a tent and his schedule is weird. I don't think he can talk on Skype in the tent. When he called me before, he was in some cafe or common area, and it was loud. He hasn't been back there, so we haven't talked. I can't tell him about Nina, or the house, or my nose bleeds. He knows about the emotional roller coaster, but not the latest.
And at work, I've been working on a proposal to get ADA accommodations for bipolar disorder. I may have already mentioned this, I can't remember. Thinking about this stuff is hard enough, trying to write it down in a form that won't sound ridiculous to others is even harder. It makes me feel a little retarded. But I know exactly which aspects of my work environment are causing me problems, and I know how to fix them. The question is whether my team, my boss, and my company will be able to help me out. That remains to be seen.
So once again, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything - which, once again, is happening all at the same time. I'm starting to think I need to learn some touchy-feely life skills that involve slowing down and not accumulating multiple sources of stress. I seem to be a magnet for it.
Anyway, except for my worry for Nina, today was a decent day. I did okay at work. I didn't get overwhelmed and I wrote good code. I even got to eat eggs, bacon, and chocolate chip pancakes for lunch. You can't go wrong with that. It covers 3 of the 4 food groups - salt, fat, and sugar. If it had been a beer lunch, I would've covered all 4.
Tomorrow I have to decide what to do about Nina. And I have to get my yearly poking and prodding at the doctor's office. Yuck. And I have to pay for a home inspection. And do all the usual daily activities... like maybe work, or something. Super.
I will be happy when Joey's home, when I know what's going to happen with the house, when my work environment is straightened out, when I know what's wrong with my kitty, when... oh, who am I kidding? Everything will happen exactly when and how it needs to. I'm just along for the ride.
1 comment:
Oh woe is you!
Such big things going on in such a short time frame.
All I can say is hang in there.
I'll tell you that my kitty, Jamoca, was not looking well for a while and I took her to the vet. She was a mean and nasty cat, but I loved her and in her own hateful way, I think she loved me. The news came back that she had a heart murmur and her organs were starting to not function properly. I was so upset, that I started to cry in the office.
The doctor told me that I shouldn't worry because he had meds for her that will extend her life.
That's when I started to really cry. When he asked me why I was crying I blubblered out, "She's going to die!"
He told me as long as I gave her the pills daily she would be fine.
I told him,"No, she's going to die because I can't get her to take pills without her biting me."
Then he understood because she bit him when he tried to give her a pill. And he never did get her to take the stupid little yellow pill.
She did wind up living to a ripe old age of 15. Without the pills and everything. :)
Just remember - one day at a time and it's all much more manageable.
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